I find that Speer is not the worse professor to have, with lectures that are easy to follow. However, the style of having a midterm, 8-page paper due in Week 9 followed by a final in Week 10 did not make sense to me. I wish that instead of a final we only had the paper or vice versa. The format of the midterm and final is divided into two parts: multiple choice then short essay answers (about two.) The multiple-choice questions felt unnecessarily tricky, and as someone who did the readings and took notes, I was annoyed that several responses felt like trick questions. On that note, there are multiple lengthy readings required with weekly homework assignments (answering about 6-8 questions on the week's reading with a 150-word response to each.) I did not strictly adhere to the word count and was not penalized for this, but this depends on the TA. I think what made the class manageable to me is having a really good TA to break down the concepts, so I have to admit I'm hesitant to take another class with Speer without guaranteed additional help. (Approaching him for questions can be intimidating.)

Definitely take this class. Professor Speer makes his lectures extremely clear and if you come to class and take notes, you will do well on the exams. The weekly readings can get dense, but are usually pretty interesting.

Speer is a professor that cares a lot about the subject. Take that as you will. I find that when professors care a little TOO much about their subject they get mad/upset when students don't feel the same way (don't put in a lot of effort, show up to lectures, make the whole class their life). He tries to be helpful and I think that he does an okay job at that. His tests are structured in a very indirect way. It's the type of test that tries to trick students by make the questions trick questions or just SLIGHTLY off from the actual answers. He is also extremely sassy when you try to ask questions. It's not very welcoming. SO, although he just cares so much and in turn wants to be helpful, the way he structures the class is tricky, paranoid, and just doing too much.

One of the best classes I have taken at UCLA. So relevant to current events and so interesting to learn about the evolution of race and how ultimately race is socially constructed. Not to mention my TA was actually the GOAT. Joauquin is the best if you can have him as a TA, you should and you will be blessed

Overall, this was a pretty good class. Political power, wealth inequality, gender inequality, etc are all discussed and honestly most of it you probably already know. You have weekly homework assignments where you have to do the readings and answer around 8 written questions, but they were graded on completion. Midterm and final were honestly really easy, for both it was 20 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions. The only thing that was slightly tricky was the final paper where it was based on one of the readings and you had to agree or disagree with it, but it was nothing too bad as long as you take your time on it. Professor Speer is so helpful and his lectures are very clear and understandable, you can tell he takes the time to make sure his students succeed :)
also ta benjamin is the besttt

Having a good TA is crucial in this class, as his lectures IMO are quite boring and don't actually help very much (other than understanding the neccessary vocabulary that is found in the readings).
I really wish he opened up dicusssions more and a back and forth between the students-- because he mostly just read from the slides and its hard to pay attention because its quite boring.
Mid.